TRUE LOVE

I’ve witnessed my share of tragedies while sitting at the dinner table watching the local news channels. I saw a couple, hand in hand, comforting each other; the wife reiterating the fact that her husband’s right leg cramped up on him—he couldn’t remove his foot from the accelerator, she explained, that’s why he turned down that dead end street. His eyes averted hers, and in all fairness, he avoided the cameras too, preferring to look downward instead. She continued to defend him. Then they cut to footage of where a station wagon had careened out of control and into the Detroit River. I heard the anchor man in the studio report the names and ages of the children who had drowned. I thought of my grandfather; he died in much the same way.

I often wonder why I still get the Detroit Free Press. It’s filled with nothing but bad news. I read about how this couple had problems way before their vehicle went into the water. I read about how the husband turned on the gas to the stove and left lighted candles in their house. I read about how he was tried and convicted for the murder of their children.

At work, I don’t like to match faces with the tragedies I have witnessed on the television or read about in the newspaper. Sometimes it happens. One day, as I was leaving the prison, I said to a coworker, That woman in the lobby, she looks familiar. Who is she?

That’s inmate so-and-so’s wife. You know—Mr. I-got-a-cramp-in-my-leg guy.

No way! I said.

Yep. She tries to visit him faithfully. I don’t think I’d visit someone who tried to kill me. He usually refuses the visit anyway.

I’ve often wondered how you can measure “true love.” Is it by the Hallmark smiles on a couple’s faces? Or is it by the amount of suffering a person is willing to endure?

Short story recommendation: "Love" by Nell Goddin